p2pnet - rss feed: Big Music tax on UK P2P file sharers
p2pnet news view P2P | Freedom | Music:- The only organisations that are ungoverned are governments.
They’re supposed to represent the people who put them into office, but the reality is: government leaders are far more concerned with pleasing and appeasing the self-interested business organisations which control the on- and offline media than their own constituents.
The UK government has proved more than willing to kowtow to corporate entertainment industry demands and in its latest act of servility, says it plans to tax file sharers on behalf of the multi-billion-dollar record labels —- Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US).
“We need action as the industry is suffering,” The Independent has a “Whitehall source” declaring .
With that in the background, Net users could face fines, dressed up as “an annual charge,” of up to £30 (about $60) to, “download music under plans to be unveiled today that aim to tackle illegal file-sharing,” it says, going on »»»
Ministers are backing proposals that would enable millions of broadband users to pay an annual levy which would allow them to copy as much - previously illegal - music from the internet as they wanted. The money raised would be channelled back to the rights-holders, with artists responsible for the most popular songs receiving a bigger slice of the cash.
John Hutton, the Business Secretary, and Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary, will unveil a package of proposals, beginning with thousands of prolific downloaders receiving letters warning them they are breaking the law by copying music and sending it to friends. The Government sees that move as the last chance for internet service providers (ISPs) to get a grip on the growing problem of piracy.
In the longer term, Mr Burnham is supporting calls from sections of the music industry for a yearly levy of £20 to £30 to be imposed by ISPs on customers who want to share music.
They believe it would prevent criminalising large sections of the public, while helping to compensate the music industry for lost sales. If successful it could be extended to cover films and television programmes.
Veteran Big 4 supporter Peter Jenner is quoted in the story as saying, “If you get enough people paying a small enough amount of money you can turn around the wheels of the music industry.”
Nor is this the first time ex-Pink Floyd manager Jenner has been involved in demands for a music tax.
He argued for it in Europe in 2006, said p2pnet in March, going on:
“Trent Reznor said the same thing last year (as did the Songwriters Association of Canada).”
And Warner Music hired music industry expert Jim Griffin, “to create a new entity that would create a pool of money from user fees to be distributed to artists and copyright holders,” said our story, continuing:
The goal? A measly $5 per month from everyone, “or fees of $20 billion per year. That’s double the current size of the recorded music industry ($10 billion).”
Just think what $60 a month would do.
Adds The Independent:
“The Government will also announce consultation on other ways of combating internet piracy, with a view to final decisions later in the year after studying the impact of the warning letters. Legislation could be in place by next spring.
“As well as an annual levy set by ISPs, the Government will also float the idea of a “three strikes and you’re out” policy adopted in France under which people who illicitly download or share music are disconnected after ignoring two warnings.
“Other alternatives include requiring ISPs to disclose the identities of regular downloaders, a move they warn would be costly and could breach data protection controls. They could also be ordered to install filters that would prevent downloading.
“Ministers accept there are considerable practical problems in controlling online activity and are wary of imposing expensive regulations on internet providers. But they say the scale of the problem, and its impact on Britain’s creative industries, means doing nothing is not an option.”
.
.Stumble It!
The Independent - Music industry to tax downloaders, July 24, 2008
p2pnet - Warner Music classic protection racket’, March 28, 2008
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July 24th, 2008 at 8:27 am
I actually think this is an excellent idea. So long as it is genuinely opt in (which sounds to be the case from the quote “on customers who want to share music.”). It sounds to me like a government enforced DRM free licence based access to all music ever made for £30 a year. To be honest for that level of service I’d quite happilly pay £180 a year.
Artists would get more money, customers would get a better service and we can get rid of this DRM nonsence into the bargain!
I’ve been waiting for years for the government to force the music industry to wake up and smell the coffee. Look like thats now at least being considered.
July 24th, 2008 at 10:22 am
There isn’t enough coffee in the world to revive the dead horse that is the music industry. This is starting to sound like the TV Licence fee and wouldn’t allow users carte blanche to source or share music from wherever and with whomever they please. File sharing that infringes copyrights would still be trodden on in a heavy-handed fashion.
Chances of infinite DRM-free, high quality (OGG or FLAC please) music for a set fee?
Zero!
Too much bad blood has passed now. I’m not interested unless they can promise protection for consumers who choose to consume and share their digital entertainment in any way they see fit in a manner fitting for today’s world.
July 24th, 2008 at 10:29 am
The UK is talking about $60 unlimited music tax per year not per month.
This is the way to do it.
Then the question of how you distribute that money back to artists is a different problem, but that is totally fixable with tools such as razorback, bittorrent statistics and especially music-scrobbler plugins to media player software. The government can maintain a database of all files digital and analog fingerprints and thus create very representative statistics of usage of all the music and thus be able to compensate the artists correctly.
The music industry intermediaries of the past will quickly be pushed out. Those big coorporations may recoup whatever investments they currently have in productions, but quickly, the artists getting paid directly by this system, will be able to control the production of their music themselves. The control will be in the hands of the artists and not in the hands of marketing people at big record companies.
July 24th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Not only will you be downloading whatever rips in whatever DRM-free format you want as you are doing today, the government will also provide a huge digital music library, as a bunch of servers hosting all the music ever made so you will always be able to stream it in whichever format you want. By paying this unlimited music tax you get a username/password to this government controlled digital music library system. Which also, if you are an artist, enables you to publish the music on that platform or claim copyright to music that is already being shared on filesharing networks through submitting the analog fingerprints to your songs.
July 24th, 2008 at 10:37 am
You’re right. $60 a year, as the story says clearly.
But even so ……
Cheers!
July 24th, 2008 at 10:38 am
The industry is suffering, that’s for sure. But the Government could care less about that industry. The artists are suffering even more. So really we need action for the sake of the artists and for the sake of our cultural diversity. The music tax is the answer.
July 24th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Sadly, IMHO, this has nothing to do with the artists and everything to do with the Big 4.
Cheers!
July 24th, 2008 at 10:48 am
The Government needs to decide if downloading music is legal or not. They cannot send out 12 thousand letters saying it is illegal and at the same time consider allowing people to download unlimited amount of music for a $60 yearly music tax.
So really the Government has to make a choice, scare the children with threatening letters, or start immediately charging people $60 per year in unlimited music taxes.
The Government should charge now and think later how to distribute that money back to the artists. The Government already does that with Library taxes, TV taxes, Radio taxes, Museum taxes and many other cultural taxes. This would just be one more of those taxes for the digital distribution.
July 24th, 2008 at 10:53 am
The government? The ungoverned
The only way this has a hope of working is if the artists themselves are front and centre and able to contribute meaningfully at all stages.
If they’re not, the copyright owners will be the only ones to benefit.
Cheers!
July 24th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Ummm. do photographers get some of that money for their images that are getting shared and downloaded?
July 24th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
The music industry has been offered this very sort of proposal several times over the last decade. Their response has always been the same: “HELL NO! we’d rather sue your ass into the ground”
Now that the truth finally sinks in that suing P2P companies failed to stop filesharing, and suing 30+ thousand children, grandmothers, dead people and copier machines has failed to stop filesharing, the record industry has now changed its mind and decided to accept that now-ancient offer after all.
This is really no different from a criminal who refuses a plea bargain, elects to stand trial, winds up being convicted and getting the maximum sentence — and then decides to accept that plea bargain after all. He’d be laughed right out of the courtroom!
Yet Big Music seems to think they can do exactly that. Well, it’s too late now; there’s no going back. They chose war over peace and now need to accept its outcome.
July 24th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Jon is right here, but a flat tax distributed to the “industry” is a nightmare. Sixty bucks a year, guaranteed, music or not. Think about it.
It’s a figure based upon the average industry take before the advent of online piracy, except now their bottom line is GUARANTEED. At least before they had to invest in an infrastructure, work and take risk for their money. They had to find, sign and promote artists. They had to record, promote and release and sponsor tours. They had to predict trends and put their money down and take their chances like every other industry. With this tax they have to do nothing, NOTHING at all to receive the same yearly gross as before. No new music. No A&R, no agents in the field doing the listening, no production staff, no recording staff or facility overhead, no promotion, no nothing. And how much are the artists really gonna get? PISS, that’s what. This is ALL YOUR FAULT.
Now they can sit on their existing catalog, invest not another dime in promoting artists and let it all fly out the door with no more worries because NOW you morons (sincerely, you are so amazingly, stupidly, shortsighted, there is no other word)……NOW this tax permanently institutionalizes the very industry you claim to deplore, AND, it guarantees their income, their existence and their future forever. With NO risk on their part, not ever again. They’ll probably get cost of living raises, for God’s sake. And to think all you ever had to do was exercise a few morals and pay for whatever you took or just STOP BUYING. STOP BUYING! Is this really all that complicated for you???
But NOOOO YOU geniuses had to steal it year after year in front of the Feds and hand this issue to the RIAA on a fucking silver platter. Nicely done, fellas, real smart. If this tax goes through the industry will have slam dunked you right into the toilet.
July 24th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
This story is false.
July 24th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
To Sam I Am:
“This is ALL YOUR FAULT.” - is not a fair remark. It’s a set-up - can’t you see?
“pay for whatever you took” - is not realistic cause if everyone paid their buck for every song they took they would go into bankruptcy - there is simply not enough money made in the world to pay for that.
“or just STOP BUYING” - fair remark. I like that one.
July 24th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Does anybody else notice that they always mention ‘artists’ when justifying these sort of measures? Never uttering a sound about who owns 90% of these copyrights and hence reaps the rewards; that is, the record companies! Do you really believe they are doing all this for the artists? It would be a PR disaster if they told the truth, and much harder to persuade governments and the people of their position.
July 24th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Don’t support the record companies in anyway. Remember how they treat / treated all of us! never surrender. I wont rest till they have been utterly vanquished.
July 24th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
so they want 60 bucks a year for that I fileshare (download) all that my ears can bear?
fine, I’m in for it….
… just in the same second when MAFIAA puts up for download -from places where they are responsible for the HDD space the engergy providing the ISB uplink and so on- ALL songs ever recorded in at least FLAC quality of the best recording of that song they can provide!
Why should I pay them 60 bucks a year that I can legally download stuff that is depending on what other civilians with filesharing software running are willing to offer me?
Those parasites want money to suck? Then offer all you have in exchange for that!
July 25th, 2008 at 7:57 am
I wouldn’t accept music from them for free!!